Editorial: Agency turf battles threaten national security

Thursday

Sep 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 24, 2009 at 2:52 PM

When it comes to turf wars there's one area that ought to be off limits, and that's public safety. Sadly that lesson appears not to have set in with two federal agencies, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the draft of a Justice Department investigation into how the two offices conduct their business as they track down bombers and follow the trail of explosions around the country, the FBI and ATF push, shove and squabble like a couple of kids trying to get to the head of the line.

When it comes to turf wars there's one area that ought to be off limits, and that's public safety.

Sadly that lesson appears not to have set in with two federal agencies, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the draft of a Justice Department investigation into how the two offices conduct their business as they track down bombers and follow the trail of explosions around the country, the FBI and ATF push, shove and squabble like a couple of kids trying to get to the head of the line.

The study, reported on last week by The Associated Press, shows that agents race each other to the scene of the crime, fight over who has jurisdiction once they get there, keep the information they learn while there to themselves and don't partner for training. If this kind of grade-school nonsense sounds familiar, it ought to. It was the same type of failing that kept national intelligence agencies from putting the pieces together prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

To fix such problems, the FBI and ATF were put under Justice Department oversight - previously the ATF reported to the treasury secretary - so their lines of command would be clearer and they could be ordered to cooperate. But FBI Director Robert Mueller told senators last Wednesday that the report is basically accurate, that folks on the ground for the two agencies "live more in the past than they should" and cling to their interagency resentment, though he argued that top-level cooperation isn't a problem. In part, the difficulty stems from the fact that the Justice Department doesn't have clear rules on which agency is in charge during joint efforts. That needs to be fixed, fast.

Both these sparring siblings have been involved recently in a probe of a Colorado man with possible links to al-Qaida. His trip to New York City reportedly helped spur a search of several apartments there for bomb-making materials, and officials from both agencies searched his Colorado home. Let's hope they're cooperating, though this week reports indicated that friction between the FBI and the New York City Police Department may have compromised that investigation before it could yield full fruit.

We'd say this: If law enforcement agencies can't put aside their differences over who gets the credit or takes the lead to find the vital clues on future investigations, if they can't both realize that their respective missions - find the perpetrators, bring them to justice - are the same, there will definitely be something they can share.

The blame.

Peoria Journal Star

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